Luke

Must have soft dome tweeters. Great for vocals. Not a drum and bass monkey!! Will be fed with 100 watts of sounstream.

LeonWells

Well ive got some Focals and they are an amazing sound, however they have very big magnets and are a right pain to fit, will be attempting to fit them tom / weekend.

If you want some decent speakers that drop in without much hassell (would prob recommend making a MDF Mounting plate and Dynamat the door skin tho) I recon Diamond Audio speakers are very good. Focals are better but Diamonds easier to fit

just my opinion, hope it helps

Leon

Luke

Leon

Tell me more about the focals. The DLS's I have are great. Just thinking about more power.

nom

The focals (I have them in at the moment) take some serious power & the vocals are often unnervingly 'there' - the downside (to me) is that they are quite hard sounding; great, but tiring. Very metal-dome, which is why I'm changing...

Adam M

agree completely with nom, word for word.

focals mids are amazing but brightness was too much for me, I blame the passives persoanlly but a nice silk dome would help lots.

DLS are also great kit.

I have also tried rainbow, but was not entirely convinced for the price.

The absolute best fronts I have heard require door builds and are 8 inch mids with a horn loaded centrally mounted compression driver. A lot of effort but stunning. Work out about 1k if you have the seemlessly fitted. Made by veritas, and you literally dont need any other speakers or subs (almost).

kryten

Hmmm, Horns. Now if only I could be bothered to go to the hassle of fitting the damn things!

I'd go with the Focals. DLS may want a bit more than 100w (I know Dyns certainly would).

However, whatever you do, consider making a door build - it will make more difference to the sound than trebling your speaker budget!!

Adam M

Jryten,

The dyns do need a lot of power, but I would never recommend them for a high power and high quality application. They simply cannot handle the volume. They are soooooo smooth but only at low to moderate levels.

If anyone wants to have a play, I still have some becker/dyn 8 inch subs, if you want to see what they can do. I never used them as anything other than mds as they reach up to 5000Hz! and sounded bloody good at that!

Going home now.

Not driven the 22B for a week and getting excited.

Pbone

Door builds look cool if done right.

Luke

Pbone

Coooooool ,very nice who did them and how much????

Luke

Adam or anyone!!

"Veritas" tell me more.....

Cant stand bright treble. Love silk dome tweeters.

nom

Focal no touchy-touchy, then.
There don't seem to be too many good speakers about with silk dome - the 'quality' (or rather 'pricey') ICE these days seems to mean nasty hard, crashy metal things. Silk domes are for cheap stuff, apparently. Strange that the domestic world seems to go the other way...
'Loud' depends on what you think of as loud, and then how much you're going to use it like that. The Focals sound best when loud - that's when the tiring balance they have stops. But if you want to hear something other than humming when getting out at the other end, they tend to be a bit 'bass shy' at low volumes - I have difficulty getting the balance so that the bass still appears to come the front, so the soundstage gets muddled.
Seeming that you had a Genesis before & now have a Soundstream, I'd say that the sound that you are after isn't what Focals will produce. I think Dyn may be the best choice, but I haven't stuck them in yet so can't be sure... they certainly sound pretty good mounted in bits of cardboard in my living room doing their 'running in' thing and that's with barely any baffle...

steve McCulloch

Do not... I repeat do not touch Dyn Audio
They cant take any form of decent volume

I have gone through two sets, and am not best pleased, especially as you can only realistically amp them up gradually - they were a pain

I have not sorted out my ice - Focals are cheap (can get for just over £200), but again dont think they can take the power. (I'm talking circa 150wrms)

Diamond are incredibly expenive for the money - I dont want to fork out £600 for for a front component set (unless they've ccome down in price recently) - the Dyns were bad enough at £400

Dealers keep telling me to fit JL Audio - but they sound awful. The Dyns sound great, when they work, but they seem to have incredibly poor build quality which means that when you put more than about 130wrms through them the glue comes loose on the Spider -if that means anything to anyone.....

I'm still thinking of putting the car back to std, as after 15 mths I have a naff stereo system including Dyn that cant take power, Genesis amps that dont have decent power, and various sets of subs!

nom

Don't think I could have a more different point of view

steve McCulloch

Join the club of confusion

nom

Yeah, well, that's stereos for you

Luke

One big happy family!!!

Will have about 130 watts from a soundstream amp to play with.

I always keep my gains turned full down and the head unit (Rocfos)
has a maximum of 38 on the volume.

I call it aday at about 31. What is the general rule on setting up gains???? Some say let the pre-amp do its thing and relax the gains on the amp??? But would it be better to come down on the input power and tuen the gain up a bit????

I know its trial and error... But hey some of you guys KNOW their stuff!!! No names just respect!!

Scoty

Hello

I fitted Polk/Momo audio component speakers to the front doors.

I can't tell you what they sound like compaired to others, but I can tell they can handle a LOT of power. I've got a Pheonix Gold TI500.4 powering them @ 150 watts RMS. £500 or less.Happy hunting

http://www.polkmomo.com/mm465.html
Scoty



[Edited by Scoty - 2/8/2002 8:03:04 PM]

audio g man

I had a set of Dynaudio components in the front doors of a T5, coaxials in the back doors and a 10" sub in a small sealed box in the back. An Alpine h/u and soundstream power. I can't remember the exact RMS power output but it was about 4x50w and 1x150w. It sounded very good indeed. 130wrms+ for front components sounds rather alot. I've never seen a speaker with a broken or detatched spider.
Are you running these speakers in Espl or something?

[Edited by audio g man - 2/9/2002 8:53:37 PM]

[Edited by audio g man - 2/9/2002 9:01:35 PM]

audio g man

Many speakers are designed primarily for the American market and the Yanks do like thier treble. Thats why even some soft dome tweeters sound too bright.

Luke

AGM

only using the amps power for "Headroom". I can control it through a pair of Nakamichi Crossovers.

Still playing with Gains.........


Any clues??? how do you set yours??/



Luke

Luke

Only using the power as "Headroom". Tahts why I have it all turned down. It is fed from Nakamichi active crossovers.so I have another gain conntrol as well

How do you set uo your gains????

steve McCulloch

espl?

was just running of a 4*50 (== 4*90) Genensis amp - bridged to run off two channels - but never turned above about 70% -running Tweeters and components independently was not loud enough

130wrms aint that high - was needed as the subs would have drowned out the sound

The Dyns sound amazing when they work - I've heard nothing better (not heard Veritas!) but they cannot be amped up at all and thye take a fair bit of power to start sounding good!

I've decided to put in some standard front and rear speakers and say run off the 4 channel Genesis and see what the difference is - if theres one thing i've realised its that money does not buy quality!!

Was gonna change the front speakers and bass but did not want to fork oput another £2k - including 2 caps

Best advice to most is to just uprate headunit and put in some reasonable speakers for less than £750!

nom

Just swapped out a pair of Focal 165 K2s ( I think that's their name) for a pair of Dynaudio almost-fits size. I can see what Steve means about the power thing. They sap it up quite a bit! However, the sound (Nak h/u, Genesis 5-channel, Dyn fronts, RF 10" sub) is smooth with a capital smooo and clear as I have heard in a car. Well, except for the really posh cars that are actually designed with the idea of someone wanting to put a stereo in them anyway Certainly won't go as loud as the Focals could, but they're quite loud enough to drown out all road noise, which is all that really matters (to me, anyway ) I started being able to hear a lot more of the stuff that I can hear at home but seems to usually 'get lost' in the car as well.
Chuffed, if you hadn't realised

steve McCulloch

How come you changed the Focals? - was they too tinny sounding on the Tweeters?

I'm gonna something cheap like MB Quartz in and see what the difference is - I've heard a set at £100 that sound better than the Dyn's - well the ones in my car - I only have one speaker and the two tweaters - as the lhs keeps going!

nom

I changed from the Focals 'cos I found them too tiring, if you see what I mean. Not really 'tinny' as such, but, well, very 'metal dome'. Not my favourite sound! A shame, actually - I probably should have tried playing around with just changing the tweeter & leaving the main drive unit, but at the generally not-high-levels that I play stuff at they were rather missing depth/weight of bass too.
A very good speaker, just not to my tastes

kryten

OK. Dyns are VERY GOOD speakers BUT they are incredibly sensitive to both the amp and more importantly the installation.

I would NEVER recommend anyone to fit Dyns unless they were going for full door builds. Otherwise, you just won't get the best out of them.

Think about how much time is spent workng out the type of sub box needed and its correct internal volume.

Then people go and shove a pair of speakers into whatever holes the car manufacturer decided to leave in those (very flimsy in the scoob's case) plastic door bits and wonder why they sound awful. Think of it this way: take out a set of drivers from a pair of expensive floorstanders and stuff them in the excuse for a cabinet that you get with the speakers included with a £59 quid-all-in stereo from your local shop. Guess what: they sound awful too!!

Having said that, I've been pumping about 170w RMS through mine (from a Soundstream Continuum) for several years and they are quite loud enough and have never detached from anything.

Of course, if you're into Drum and Bass/Techno Garage etc then they aren't going to be the right speaker for you - that's not what they were designed to handle.

Dyns aren't for everyone - only those of us with golden ears (joke!).

steve McCulloch

They have'nt just been shoved into the std door. They are an **** to fit - well the 6.5's anyway and required moving out an inch, careful consideration to the leccy window and loads of soundproof.

I think I've just been unlucky - one speaker will take whatever I give it - the other thats been replaced twice just dont seem to want to play ball

and no... not just drum and bass.....

I could not go for the door builds as this would have left a hole were the Dyn Tweeters were sat, which I would have had to patch up - but did not want to

Your system sounded very good though I would have to say....

I'm out of the stereo stuff

audio g man

Luke.
I set up my gains as follows:
Adjust amp gains to norm. Usually half-way, then turn all active crossover gains to minimum. Insert a cd with a bit of everything (electronic music and instrumentals). Hit play, and turn the volume full up. Set crossover point for subs to about 80hz and for front and rear speakers about 200hz or the highest point if lower than 200hz. Now slowly turn the front speakers gain control up to your maximum normal listening volume, Then lower the x-over point from 200hz till the speakers start to distort (can't handle the bass). wind it back up a tad to loose the distortion and make a note of that spot then turn it back down to minimum.
Do the same for the rear speakers.
Once front and rear speakers gain controls are known, Set them to the desired points, now to the bass. Turn the volume up quite loud and slowly increase the sub gain till you get to the desired amount of bass. The crossover point of 80hz is generally good for most types of sub and box configurations but if might be beneficial to have a little play with it. Decrease it and increase it a little to see if this helps at all. Go for a drive and have a listen. If when on full volume and on the move the sound is not loud enough, wind the amp gains from norm up a little and repeat the whole setup process again.
Getting it right may take some time, but it will be worth it.
Good luck.
G.

Luke

Adam

I am going crazy trying to find "Veritas" !!!

any clues??? Some think they are in Holt in Northfolk???? But their a Oil rig comp!!

[Edited by Luke - 2/9/2002 10:45:25 AM]